Seahawks GM Schneider “pleased with the way” free agency is going

Seahawks general manager John Schneider was on 710 ESPN Seattle Monday, primarily to talk about a good cause he and his wife are behind called Ben’s Fund, which raises money to provide financial assistance to families with autistic children.

You can listen to the entire interview here, but the most significant football-related part came when Schneider was asked his thoughts on the way free agency has transpired. The Seahawks have lost a number of key players, most notably leading receiver Golden Tate, while not adding anyone of note in free agency. That’s not a surprise to the Seahawks, Schneider said.

“What I would say is that we’re pleased with the way things are going,” he said. “The way they have gone is part of the model that we have created over the last year-and-a-half. We expected some attrition along the way. It’s always very hard to make those decisions and move forward, but we’re very excited about the younger players we have on this team. We are excited to get Greg Scruggs back playing, and Tharold Simon. And, shoot, the Super Bowl MVP (Malcolm Smith) is a pretty good player. We’re really excited about the young core of players that we have.”

Of course keeping that young core involves eventually giving players raises, which is why the Seahawks haven’t been big players in free agency this year.

“We’re just excited about our plan, and moving forward, we’re blessed enough to have a young, talented team and we need to be able to plan accordingly in terms of being able to reward those players,” Schneider said.

Schneider also sees potential for the offense to improve without any outside help because, “Two of our most explosive offensive players barely even played last year in Christian Michael and Percy (Harvin).”